You might think that user attention is attracted by stunning imagery or unique claims. And you’re not wrong. But the success of web design that converts largely depends on the way you position high-value elements on the page.

In other words, the layout of your website can determine the extent to which you can engage site visitors.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you should pick a popular WordPress theme for your site and go with it simply because it’s “tried and tested.” Instead, it means you should learn about people’s behavior on the web and employ a variety of tactics to create an online space that caters to their demands.

What is the above-the-fold section?

The phrase “above-the-fold” is a throwback to the world of newspaper publishing and sales. Editors tended to place important, eye-catching news items above the line where the newspaper was folded since this was the area that convinced the reader to choose that particular paper over a less-impressive competitor.

The term has survived the evolution to digital content consumption and now refers to the area of digital real estate that is visible above your monitor’s scroll line.

According to research by the Nielsen Norman Group, people spend 57% of their page-viewing time above the fold, showing how crucial it is for businesses to get this webpage section right.

But this doesn’t mean that your website’s hero section needs to be a hodge-podge of attention-seeking elements that bombard web visitors with sales-y messages. Rather, the above-the-fold design should focus on engaging web visitors to encourage them to scroll, click through, and convert.

So, if you’re looking to give your website a makeover guaranteed to result in better engagement rates, these are the above-the-fold design tactics to help you do just that.

1. A compelling value proposition

People click on links and visit websites, blog posts, and landing pages because they’re looking to solve a pain point. So, if you want to compel web visitors to stay on your site, interact with your content, and potentially convert into customers, you’ll need to optimize your value proposition.

By enhancing your USP to be fully customer-oriented, you can effectively present the real-world benefits your product offers and draw your target audience’s attention to the advantages of using your solutions/services.

For instance, on the January AI homepage, the value proposition states that “January analyzes thousands of data points to help [customers] eat smarter and live healthier.”

Source: january.ai

This USP works because the brand’s target audience consists of people trying to improve their health through science-backed strategies. So, by highlighting that its app uses data to give users advice, the brand is, essentially, employing a USP that promises web visitors the sought-after benefits that drove them to visit the site in the first place.

On the Workday landing page below, the brand invites web visitors to “Optimize the time, talent, and energy of [their] people.”

Source: workday.com

With this 9-word USP, the business demonstrates an in-depth understanding of its audience’s pain points. And by turning the value proposition into a CTA, Workday encourages web visitors to further interact with the page (which includes a handy explainer video), which gently moves them down the sales funnel and boosts their chances of becoming customers.

2. Calls to action

Since web users spend the majority of their on-page time interacting with content above the fold, placing high-value CTA buttons in this section can significantly improve on-page conversion rates.

So, whether your goal is to generate leads, inspire people to discover your products or services, or simply educate visitors, explore ways to optimize CTAs on the hero section of your landing pages.

To do this successfully, you need a crucial puzzle piece: understanding your prospects’ position in the sales funnel. Once you know what your web visitors want to accomplish, you can upgrade your CTAs to deliver better results.

For instance, if you know that the people coming to your website are doing so to acquire a particular product/service, you can take a more minimalistic approach—like the one employed on the Kopi Luwak Direct homepage.

Understanding that its web visitors have one straightforward goal (to buy coffee beans), this brand uses a minimalistic design tactic. It’s perfectly suited to encourage prospects in the bottom stages of the sales funnel to take the desired action.

Source: kopiluwakdirect.com

However, if you know that your landing pages are likely to attract a more varied audience, it’s not a bad idea to use multiple CTAs. This is what AMZ Pathfinder does on its homepage. With its most prominent call to action button in the hero section, it invites prospects to “Schedule a free consultation,” with the message being repeated in the top right corner of the page.

Source: amzpathfinder.com

However, the business also understands that some of its web visitors may need slightly more information regarding its services, which is why it encourages potential customers in the upper stages of the sales funnel to “See process and pricing.”

3. Breathing room

Minimal web design is popular for a good reason.

For one, research has proven that a lower level of visual complexity leads to a better first impression amongst web visitors. But leaving a positive first impression is not the only reason to employ minimalistic web design on your SaaS or agency homepage.

Using sufficient negative space on the homepage or landing page:

• has a higher chance of delivering a next-level UX through faster load times
• fosters an easy-to-use, intuitive navigation experience
• tends to come with fewer bugs
• gives you a better chance of successfully making your site responsive

So, if you’re looking to deliver a great UX and allow web visitors to quickly find the elements most likely to inspire them to convert, you might want to reduce clutter on your key pages (or your entire website).

For the above-the-fold section of your site, determine what type of element will grab user attention.

It can be a stunning image, a compelling USP, a CTA button, or a product video. However, using all of these elements in visually dominant ways might overwhelm your visitors. And, in extreme cases, it might even prevent leads from zooming in on that one thing that compels them to convert.

For a great example of a business that understands the impact of simplicity, check out the Wix homepage.

Source: wix.com

By reserving its hero section for a value proposition and CTA (no background imagery), this brand prevents web visitors from becoming distracted by non-value-driving elements and guarantees that they engage with important ones instead (or scroll to gather more information).

4. Meaningful imagery

Employing visuals on your website is always a great idea if you’re trying to engage your audience.

But while using images above the fold allows you to grab attention and communicate conversion-inspiring messages, you still have to ensure that the imagery you use on your website is meaningful and relevant.

For instance, if you’re selling a practical product, you can choose a more literal approach and show how it will look being used by your potential customers.

SomniFix combines an image of its mouth strip with a compelling value proposition that invites web visitors to stop being “a mouth breather.”

Source: somnifix.com

Similarly, for the above-the-fold screenful of its site, Uber chooses a visual that shows the results of customers using its service—two people smiling over a plate of food.

Source: uber.com

Note how the depicted feeling further reinstates the value offered by Uber’s service, heavily relying on emotional marketing, which is often the key to converting end-consumers.

When selling experiences or lifestyle products, you can take a slightly more abstract approach.

Supernatural understands this, which is why it allows itself to go a bit overboard with the main video on its homepage.

Source: getsupernatural.com

The brand knows that its target audience doesn’t want traditional fitness solutions but rather something that’ll inject a dose of excitement into their workouts.

5. Your product’s core functionality

More often than not, the best way to engage site visitors is to employ traditional marketing tactics that call prospects’ attention to the benefits your products or services can deliver. However, sometimes you can achieve far better results by giving web visitors something a bit more concrete to latch onto.

One way you can accomplish the latter is to showcase your product’s core functionality above the fold. After all, why describe something if you can show it? Allowing visitors to try out your product for themselves can be a superb way to experience its benefits and a handy way to aid your lead-generation efforts.

One exceptional example of this engagement-boosting tactic in the first screenful of a website comes from Hemingway Editor.

Instead of making its users click through several pages after landing on its website to use the free software, this brand turns its web app into the homepage, while the conversion elements (like the CTA button in the top left corner) take second place.

Source: hemingwayapp.com

MOZ does something similar—although this brand requires web visitors to create a free account to access the feature.

Source: moz.com

And, sure, this is a great tactic to improve lead generation you could implement on your website. But it’s not a strategy anyone can pull off, as it requires a high level of customer trust, which MOZ enjoys due to its high level of industry authority.

6. A product explainer video

If you’re looking to engage site visitors the moment they land on your website, you might want to experiment with video.

According to a 2021 Wyzowl survey, video is a successful format for increasing dwell time, boosting product/service understanding, lead generation, and promoting sales. But what’s even more important is that consumers love video more than any other type of content. According to the data, 73% of people would prefer to learn about products and services through video than through text, infographics, ebooks, webinars, or a demo.

Considering this information, adding a product explainer video to the hero section of your website might just allow you to successfully engage (and convert) visitors.

Still, note that there are a few rules to producing successful product explainers:

Keep it short 

Research suggests the ideal video length when aiming for engagement is up to 2 minutes.

For example, on the Flamingo homepage, the SaaS brand includes a 60-second video below its USP.

Source: helloflamingo.com

This tactic allows the business to provide web visitors with an in-depth preview of what the app can do without forcing them to read through blocks of text or sit through a presentation that never ends.

Be true to your brand’s voice

Don’t try to be witty or friendly if that’s not what your audience expects from your business.

Be clear and concise

Although jargon use can position you as an expert, it defeats the purpose of the explainer as it instantly makes it less likely that viewers will understand what you’re talking about.

Use graphics, animation, or images to boost understanding

If you’re selling a complex solution, don’t rely on your audience’s imagination to explain what it does.

For example, Mailchimp’s 3-second screen recording makes it super-clear how easy it is to create an email campaign with the brand’s editor software.

Source: mailchimp.com

Play around with storytelling and emotional marketing

In some cases, your prospects won’t be as interested in features as they will be in the commitment of your company to solve their pain points. Show that you understand them, either through storytelling or by directly addressing their frustration over an issue they’re experiencing.

For instance, check out how Asana uses this tactic to make its homepage explainer video more relatable, knowing that people are guaranteed to recognize their pain points in a depiction of a man trying to juggle remote work with being a parent.

Source: asana.com

7. Credibility signals

In certain sectors—like health or finance—the most important thing you will want to do in the above-the-fold section of your website is to establish your brand’s credibility.

After all, if almost 60% of people are inclined to distrust organizations until proven wrong, it’s easy to see how your conversion rate might suffer if you fail to establish your business’s trustworthiness.

To build credibility, showcase any necessary accreditation or guarantee and ensure your future customers understand they can place their trust in you without having to worry about the quality of service they’ll be getting.

For instance, something as simple as showing off relevant recognitions, as done by SmartSites, can be enough to convince your audience they can rely on you to deliver results.

Source: smartsites.com

Or, if you really want to emphasize your brand’s dedication to delivering a superior product, you might even want to do something similar to Stampli, which replaces its hero image with its G2 Leader and Top 100 award badges.

Source: stampli.com

8. Social proof

Finally, as you explore above-the-fold design tactics that will boost site engagement (and help you convert more customers), don’t forget about the tremendously positive impact of social proof.

After all, people trust the opinions and advice of others—especially when they’re making purchasing decisions they don’t feel competent to make.

So why not capitalize on this early on in your audience’s buyer journey, capture their attention with positive social proof, and ensure they form a perception that your brand is not just a business they can trust but a highly competent organization as well?

There are dozens of ways to make social proof an integral part of your website’s hero section.

Show off media mentions from publications your audience trusts. Communicate your value proposition by telling a customer story. Display ratings and figures that testify to your user base’s satisfaction, as done by Klarna.

Source: klarna.com

Or, knowing that your audience is most likely to trust their peers, point out who your successful clients are, as done by Contentsquare.

Source: contentsquare.com

Optimize website above-the-fold for engagement and conversion 

There are many ways to engage site visitors by employing different above-the-fold design tactics.

But, as you start experimenting with elements to include in the topmost section of your website, don’t be tempted to do everything at once. This is more likely to cause confusion than benefit your conversion rates.

Instead, define the goals you want to achieve on your website and incorporate strategies that will allow you to accomplish them. Doing just one of the things from this list can be more than enough to double your ROI. So don’t sabotage your potential gains by trying to bite off more than you objectively need.

If you’re like most digital marketers, approximately 30-50% of your total marketing budget goes towards producing and distributing content. And a large portion of that money is likely to be spent on blogging.

But here’s the thing: For many businesses, blogging represents a means to an end. In most cases, that end is generating organic traffic. Sure, getting a large portion of your audience to visit your website via Google does represent a pretty big win. However, organic traffic is not all you can expect to gain from investing time, money, and effort into producing high-quality blog posts. You could, potentially, achieve much more than that.

Are you interested in using your company blog to generate value for your organization and contribute to business growth? If so, here are the top goals you should be setting for yourself when blogging (apart from getting more traffic).

1. Generate topical authority

One of the most meaningful potential gains from investing in a well-planned company blog is topical authority. This is a term that denotes the public’s perception that you (or your brand) are an expert in your field.

Now, having this type of authority may not seem that big of a deal. After all, the quality of your products and services (along with the feedback you get from your audience) should be enough to testify to the value you offer to potential customers. But topical authority isn’t just about branding. It’s also about your ability to reach your audience.

When you produce blog content intending to establish topical authority, you’re essential, working towards several goals. You’re actively investing in content that allows you to:

• Become your audience’s go-to when they research topics related to your expertise
• Offer an in-depth knowledge base that ensures web visitors have the chance to get answers to all their questions without having to leave your website (and potentially convert with your competitors)
• Obtain top SERP positions, which automatically boosts organic traffic to your website (and reduces marketing costs)
• Meet more than a single search intent, ensuring that your content ranks for multiple keywords and types of search phrases

How to build topical authority

As with any other digital marketing strategy, there are multiple ways to build topical authority through blogging.

You might choose to research relevant keywords around which you will produce content. You could consult with your sales and customer support teams to identify consumer pain points no one else in your industry is addressing. Or, you might go into detailed audience research on platforms like Reddit and Quora and find out firsthand what your potential customers want to know about the benefits of your products.

Keep in mind, however, that the one non-negotiable condition for achieving topical authority is publishing high-quality content.

Don’t fall into the trap of keyword stuffing just for the sake of (potentially) grabbing your target audience’s attention. Instead, provide your readers with genuine value, increasing their chances of staying around on your website and having a real chance of becoming your brand’s loyal customers.

2. Create exceptional social proof with customer stories

Reviews and testimonials have a large impact on purchasing decisions. Research from Statista found that 94% of buyers are more likely to use a business after reading a positive review and that 79% of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family.

But here’s the thing. Simply showing ratings and reviews on your product pages (or homepage) won’t cut it if you want to ensure business growth. You have to go a step further—and blogging can help you do that.

By dedicating space on your company blog to telling customer stories, you can effectively generate trust, both when targeting B2C and B2B audiences.

For example, a quick look at the Therabody website shows how convincing social proof can be when your products are championed by the right ambassadors.

This brand chose to collaborate with soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo. Its ambassador stories section displays quotes from the player and shows off a stunning video of Ronaldo using the Theragun. It also gives web visitors a handy guide they can use to recreate Rondaldo’s warm-up and recovery routines at home.

Source: therabody.com

Don’t fret if your budget doesn’t allow you to go big with influencers and masterful video production. Something as elementary as using your website’s blog section to tell customer stories can be equally effective at showing off the social proof.

For inspiration on how you can do this, check out Affinda. This brand chose to write an article about one of its customers’ experiences with its products, providing potential customers with valuable information on the benefits of investing in the service. This is a low-budget yet highly effective way to show off social proof (and encourage conversions) on a blog.

Source: affinda.com

3. Make your brand ubiquitous

Whether you’ve been in business for minutes or decades, there’s one thing you probably know: buyers will usually invest in the products they’re already familiar with.

Psychologically, this comes down to the mere exposure effect. This phenomenon dictates that, in uncertain times, people tend to go with the options they’re already acquainted with. And, it’s well known that repeated exposure breeds familiarity. So why not use the mere-exposure effect to your own advantage on your blog?

For example, publishing branded resources ensures that every look at your content drives your audience to:

1. Be reminded of your brand’s existence, and
2. Associate your business with convenience (seeing that the resource is just at the tip of their fingers)

Adobe does a stellar job of using its blog to become omnipresent. By publishing content around popular search terms like color theory and using them to guide readers towards its free tools—like its convenient Color Wheel app—Adobe is making its brand name synonymous with everything design-related.

Source: color.adobe.com

As a result, Adobe ranks highly on search engine result pages for high-volume design terms. More importantly, Adobe is one of the most successful providers of SaaS products in its industry, with an almost 30% market share in graphic design software products.

The budget-friendly approach to brand ubiquity

If you want to use your blog to make your brand ubiquitous, you don’t have to develop complicated tools and web apps. There are much easier methods of giving your audience helpful resources they will enjoy using.

Asana is a great example of a slightly less resource-intensive approach to brand ubiquity through content publishing. The brand compiled a comprehensive guide to launching a product, which acts as a handy checklist.

In this checklist, Asana uses its industry know-how to empower readers to achieve business success. The article includes actionable information—links to templates, advice for exploring additional resources regarding product releases, and information from relevant research that readers will find helpful when planning a launch.

The result? A valuable resource Asana’s target audience can come back to time and again when planning a product launch, making sure that they’re not just successful in their endeavor but end up associating their success with the brand’s advice.

Source: asana.com

4. Help customers get the most out of your products

Content marketing also plays an important role in encouraging customer loyalty.

Well-written blog posts have been proven effective in engaging new readers (and making them more likely to invest in your brand’s products). On the flip side, content aimed at current customers can help nurture these existing relationships.

For example, sharing posts dedicated to helping your buyers get the most out of their purchase increases their likelihood of choosing your brand the next time they need a similar product/service. The reason is straightforward: they’ll remember that your company delivered a great deal of value for money (which is what people look for in the first place when buying products).

Besides additional revenue, helping customers get more out of your products gives you the chance to:

• Increase your store’s customer lifetime value
• Enjoy a higher ROI with all of your marketing tactics
• Have a stellar reputation in your industry

What types of blog posts can you produce to nurture customer loyalty? 

Publishing even elementary how-to posts is an excellent tactic, especially if the articles in question are tutorials that aim to improve the overall customer experience.

For example, Sola Wood Flowers’s guide to flower home decor instructs users on how to do something new, but that’s not the end of it. It also:

• Inspires readers to explore their creativity
• Ensures that they’re successful with their creations
• Maximizes their chances of purchasing their next flower arrangement kit from the brand

Source: solawoodflowers.com

Levi’s is another excellent example. A couple of years ago, this brand published a handy article instructing its buyers to wash their jeans less and teaching them the tricks to them hold onto their favorite pair for a longer time.

By following the advice from this guide to denim care, Levis’ customers don’t just reap the benefits of having their jeans look better. They also stand to save money, as proper care extends the lifespan of denim, improves the fit, and even offers the advantage of being environmentally friendly (which is what many people are looking to be right now).

Source: levi.com

Another alternative is to explore creating product guides. They’ll help potential customers make better purchasing decisions.

Fire Pit Surplus does this with its Best Concrete Fire Pits of 2022 blog post. It compares the pros and cons of ten popular products, helping readers choose the one most efficient at solving their pain points.

Note how the brand’s content marketing team uses text formatting to draw attention to unique features. It’s a super-easy effect anyone can recreate. Yet, thanks to being UX-friendly, it works, ensuring that readers notice and comprehend the value delivered by different products.

Source: firepitsurplus.com

5. Introduce new product features

Customer demands constantly evolve, as people learn about their individual needs the more they use a product. Plus, the world is changing so quickly that the solutions that worked last year may not cut it anymore.

Given this state of things, you need to continually improve your offer in order to keep your brand successful.

You can do that through small changes, like increasing the number of customer service agents. Or, you can go big and provide free upgrades or develop CX-boosting add-ons.

Whichever course you take, the way you inform your audience of new features is going to impact their opinion of your brand.

By using your blog to introduce new product features, you can:

• Go into detail, thanks to the unlimited space blogging provides
• Show precisely how the changes in your products impact your customers
• Use these posts to position your brand as an entity that puts its customers’ needs first

All of this will help build credibility for your company and, consequently, drive sales.

For an exceptional instance of a business using its blog to introduce product updates and new features, check out Rootly.

Every week, this business adds a new feature to its product. However, the way Rootly does the introductions is what stands out.

In addition to providing a screenshot of the new product function, the brand also specifies the exact customer pain point this element solves. It includes a quick user manual to ensure its customers can start using the feature right away. Plus, it concludes each post with a list of other improvements like notable bug fixes.

Source: rootly.com

6. Boost conversion rates

Content marketing is seldom regarded as a mechanism that directly boosts sales—and for good reason.

When a potential customer is searching for an answer to a particular problem, they value objectivity and clarity over a sales pitch. As a result, content marketers tend to value information that helps the customer over information that boosts their own conversion rates.

But it doesn’t mean we should have zero expectations for our blogs to assist in moving products out the door.

The key is to optimize blog content for search intent.

When a content marketer can identify a particular search action as having commercial intent, they’re able to create content that speaks directly to the searcher’s desire: finding information that helps them make an imminent purchasing decision.

High-quality content like this in-depth review of 2022’s best adjustable beds takes the reader’s position in the customer journey into consideration and aims to give information that helps them make a decision that’s right for them.

Source: sleepjunkie.com

In these cases, some sales-focused language isn’t only permissible, it’s downright necessary. Even though the reader is still likely to appreciate objectivity, they’re aware that these types of articles are likely to have a promotional slant. And, in many cases, this is what they’re looking for. They want to see long-form content telling them why a particular product or service is better than another.

Succeeding at creating content like this is a win-win. Your customer gets the information that helps them make an important purchase, and you convert your blog into a legit sales channel.

7. Associate positive emotions with your brand

Emotional branding is a crucial component of driving business growth. After all, most consumers don’t make their buying decisions rationally. Instead, the products and services they purchase are greatly determined by their emotional response to the way those products are advertised.

The great thing is that you can use content marketing to build strong emotional bonds between your brand and your audience.

For example, you can use your blog posts to show how much you care about helping your customers solve their pain points. Or, you can address current issues that your potential customers care about. You can even employ language they use to ensure that your brand comes off as authentic, relatable, friendly, and familiar.

Source: mckinsey.com

The result of adopting emotional marketing practices is that you get a pool of potential buyers who like your company, are more likely to convert, and recommend your products to their friends and family.

An excellent example of a brand using its blog to build emotion-driven relationships with its audience is this post from Bay Alarm Medical.

Knowing that its potential customers include senior citizens struggling with health problems (or their caregivers), this brand bases its content strategy on an empathetic approach to the issues its target audience deals with every day. On its blog, the brand discusses things like caregiver stress, warning signs for declining health, and tips for improving overall wellbeing despite limited mobility.

The key to making this approach work for Bay Alarm Medical is hitting just the right emotional note. So, for the content to resonate with its audience, the brand needs to:

• Make it clear it understands their struggles
• Offer solid advice
• Position its products as viable solutions to the discussed pain points
• Avoid coming off as aggressively sales-oriented

8. Support niche marketing campaigns

Another superb way to employ your company blog to encourage business growth is to think about how it might serve your paid advertising efforts.

When designing PPC marketing campaigns, the trick is to direct the traffic to a relevant landing page. Yes, many businesses send Google Ads or social media clicks to their homepage. However, if they’re making niche-specific value propositions, this approach could mean a wasted marketing budget.

Instead, if you’re trying to attract customers with specific pain points, invest in blog posts that will support your niche marketing campaigns.

This is what KURU Footwear does, dedicating landing pages to several medical conditions its products help eliminate. If you check out the brand’s plantar fasciitis landing page, you’ll see that it’s super-relevant to someone Googling the phrase “shoes for heel pain” or “shoes for plantar fasciitis.” There are lots of explanations, advice, and tips for pain management.

If, however, KURU Footwear chose to direct traffic to its homepage, it might have missed a valuable opportunity to prove its authority on the subject of shoes. It would also have seen a lower conversion rate because the contents of its landing page wouldn’t have been optimized for search intent.

Source: kurufootwear.com

Utilize blogging for business growth

As you look for ways to get more out of your content marketing strategy, the best thing you can do is define multiple objectives for your company blog.

Focus on goals that go beyond generating traffic. Don’t get caught up on metrics like page visits, time spent on site, or bounce rates. Instead, find ways to use your blog posts for more than raising product and brand awareness.

Ultimately, getting creative with your objectives and post types won’t cause any negative effects. But, if it has even the slightest chance of contributing to business growth, it’s safe to say that it’s well worth playing around with.

You can develop the best solutions in your industry and come up with value propositions no consumer can say no to. And sure, investing in content marketing, social media promotions, and website SEO optimization are superb methods to engage and convert your leads.

But none of these actions will matter if your audience can’t find you in the first place. The only surefire way to attract potential customers is to employ the right top-of-funnel marketing tactics.

In this article, we’ll discuss the objectives of awareness stage marketing, along with the most successful strategies you can employ for targeting the top end of your sales funnel.

A quick look at the stages of the sales funnel

When deciding what products to buy, consumers go through a process commonly referred to as the customer journey. Essentially, this process consists of several phases. Throughout these stages, buyers identify their pain points, explore solutions, and discover products that fit their needs. Then, they consider multiple decision-impacting factors to choose which solution to buy.

In marketing, the term sales funnel depicts a system of various marketing actions that brands can use to lead consumers through the customer journey and ultimately convert them into customers.

Generally, a sales funnel will focus on getting consumers through the following four stages of purchase decision-making.

• Awareness. The top of the sales funnel is called the awareness stage because this is the phase during which consumers become aware of solutions for their pain points. The point of top-of-funnel marketing is to get your content to new people, helping them recognize the value in your offer.
• Interest. Once consumers have become aware of your brand, they’ll enter the interest stage. During this phase of the sales funnel, your job is to help consumers evaluate whether the solutions your business offers meet their needs in the right way.
• Decision. This stage is where people decide whether they’re ready to invest in your products. They’ll consider price, delivery, packaging, and even reviews to ensure that they’re getting the best possible value for money. When targeting this section of the sales funnel, do everything you can to make an offer your web visitors won’t be able to resist.
• Action. Finally, once they have collected all the relevant information, buyers enter the action stage of the sales funnel. The bottom of the sales funnel is where you either convert leads into customers or lose them to your competition.

Awareness stage marketing objectives

As you will see, there is a wide variety of top-of-funnel marketing tactics you can employ to reach your target audience. All of these strategies aim to arrive at similar outcomes.

There are two common objectives with awareness stage marketing: building brand awareness and enabling emotional buy-in.

Brand awareness

The elementary goal with marketing tactics for the top end of your sales funnel is building brand awareness. That is, introducing your business to potential customers.

In general, these strategies will inform consumers about:

• What your product does
• How your product can address their needs
• Why your product is different from your competitors’ offers

Emotional buy-in

Buyers choose what brands to support based on different factors. And according to research, many of these factors are emotional rather than rational. So, the second objective of top-of-funnel marketing is building up your brand’s reputation in a way that will inspire consumers to invest in your products.

You can do this by using awareness-stage marketing to:

• Build brand trust and credibility
• Define (and enact) organizational values that your target audience cares about
• Underline the benefits of your audience becoming a customer of your company
• Discuss the risks of customers not choosing your solution to address their pain points

8 marketing tactics for the awareness stage

Once you have a clear idea of what you’d like to achieve with your top-of-funnel marketing efforts, it’s time to get to work.

The following are all excellent tactics you can employ, whether you want to build brand awareness, introduce your products and services to potential clients, or describe the benefits your audience will gain by choosing to shop with your brand.

1. Educate the audience about your products without sales pressure

Generally, consumers in the awareness stage don’t respond well to aggressive sales tactics.

Sure, a time-limited discount or personalized offer presented at the right moment are both great ways to get bottom-of-the-funnel consumers to make that final decision. However, pressuring someone who’s just beginning to explore their options into making a purchase can be damaging to your brand’s relationship with them.

This is, in part, because consumers distrust advertising. According to Nielsen’s 2021 Total Audience Report, fewer than one in five consumers find ads very trustworthy.

Source: nielsen.com

Considering this, using hard-sell techniques on segments of your audience still in the top stages of the customer journey is likely to hurt your bottom line and your brand’s reputation.

Top-of-funnel marketing can help you solve this issue. Start by creating educational content that introduces products and services without pressuring consumers to purchase. After all, Edelman’s 2022 Trust Barometer notes that providing high-quality information makes for the best method of building brand trust.

An excellent example of this tactic in practice comes from Transparent Labs. Since the company sells supplements, the brand heavily invests in awareness-stage marketing to reach new audiences. With a rich blog section covering a wide variety of fitness-related topics, the company makes it super-easy for potential customers to “stumble upon” its content.

Still, the most stand-out feature in Transparent Labs’ approach is how it prioritizes value over product promotion in the content it publishes.

For example, in its 8-Week Guide to Body Recomposition guide, the brand provides readers with a host of helpful advice on how to lose fat and build muscle. Most noteworthy about this article is that out of the 4,000+ words, only three sentences discuss Transparent Labs products.

Source: transparentlabs.com

As you can see, this is more than enough to enlighten readers about relevant solutions for solving this specific pain point. But it doesn’t pressure web visitors to make a purchase.

Instead, it focuses on creating product awareness. It also ensures that consumers form a positive opinion of Transparent Labs and begin to trust the brand as a dependable source of genuinely helpful information (whether they currently plan on buying a supplement or not).

2. Provide actual, actionable solutions in your content

Successful content marketing at the top end of the sales funnel is about providing value. It’s about educating potential customers and giving them expert insight into your world.

When you use your expertise to help them overcome a real-world pain point, you’re buying enormous goodwill and credibility for your brand.

Some companies even go as far as offering insight that could be seen as a threat to their core product. These companies understand that at the very top of the sales funnel, talking about what you can do for your audience isn’t as important as being seen as a helpful friend, guiding them towards a solution.

If you look at Scott’s Cheap Flights’s guide to finding cheap flights, you’ll notice just how deeply the brand’s marketing team has bought into this principle.

The post is a 3,600-word masterclass in breaking a complex issue down for an audience that loves traveling but may struggle with technology.

There are two consequences:

Firstly, the post fulfills its primary purpose of giving readers a solution to a complex problem. And, secondly, it sketches a very clear picture of how much time and effort the reader would save if they did subscribe to the company’s service.

Although, the post never actually spells out the latter point. It very smartly lets the reader come to this conclusion by themselves.

Source: scottscheapflights.com

3. Segment visitors by the content they read

Top-of-funnel marketing allows you to reach new consumers who belong to your target audience. But, it also gives you the unique opportunity to optimize the lower stages of your sales funnel to ensure the best possible results.

It does this by allowing you to segment your audience based on the content they have interacted with.

Essentially, when you know what blog posts certain web visitors have read, you can retarget them with relevant product ads and create dedicated landing pages optimized to address their pain points and areas of interest.

There’s a reason why this is so important for your sales funnel.

According to research, most web visitors don’t convert on their first visit to a website. So, no matter how exceptional your awareness stage marketing is, you will have to work hard to create opportunities for additional touches.

With retargeting, you can do this rather effectively. On the one hand, it allows you to keep your solutions at the top of your potential audiences’ minds by delivering interest-specific ads to remind them of your products.

On the other hand, it gives you the opportunity to continually invest in brand awareness, even after web visitors have left your site without making a purchase or subscribing to your newsletter.

4. Give audiences a reason to follow and interact with your brand

When building a sales funnel—especially in the awareness stage of your funnel—ensure that your marketing strategies encourage consumers to connect with your company.

One of the best spaces to do this is, of course, social media.

According to Statista, many internet users use social media to engage with brands and branded content. In fact, 31.1% of people browse social media for entertainment, 29.3% do so to keep up with trends, 27.7% seek inspiration for things to do and buy, 26.2% perform product research, and 22.7% go online to see content from their favorite brands.

Source: statista.com

These statistics prove how impactful social media can be for getting more out of your awareness stage marketing efforts.

Essentially, you can use social media to distribute content that your target audience will find attractive and entertaining. And even if people don’t know much about your brand (yet), they are likely to develop a deep familiarity as long as you plan your content strategy in a way that builds connections and consistently provides value.

An excellent example of a brand that works hard to create great top-of-funnel content comes from Farrow & Ball. Knowing that most people aren’t particularly passionate about paint and wallpaper, this company decided to turn its Instagram presence into a one-stop shop for design inspiration that helps people get more out of their spaces.

Source: instagram.com

With posts like the one above, the brand gives followers content that is more than just aesthetically pleasing. It also provides actionable tips and value, keeping consumers coming back for more, even when they’re not necessarily in the process of decorating their homes.

Nonetheless, thanks to this awareness-stage marketing strategy, a large percentage of Farrow & Ball’s followers will go to the brand’s Instagram page the next time they think of painting their walls. This maximizes their chances of moving down the sales funnel and becoming the brand’s customers in the future (be it near or far).

Mindbodygreen does something similar, also on its Instagram account. Even though it’s a business that focuses on health coaching and education, the brand understands the role of social media in building an efficient sales funnel.

Source: instagram.com

The brand creates beautifully designed social media posts, constantly providing Instagram users with new and valuable information. Then, once it has successfully grabbed user attention (and cemented its trustworthiness), it directs followers to its website, where it takes them further down the sales funnel, aiming to capture leads and nurture them into paying customers.

5. Humanize your brand voice

People want brands to be “human.” So, one tip that can help you optimize the top end of your sales funnel is to make your brand voice as approachable as possible.

In 2019, Sprout Social surveyed 1,000 consumers to discover what they thought about social media and how brands use it. The results revealed that 78% of people looked to branded social posts to experience a connection. What’s even more interesting is that the key to building consumer-brand relationships turned out to be authenticity delivered through material that humanizes brands.

Source: sproutsocial.com

So knowing that your audience wants to understand your brand beyond just what it sells, it’s not a bad idea to look for ways to humanize your voice.

One way of doing this is to be more vocal about the values that drive your business.

GILI Sports, for example, does this on its homepage, where it expresses its intention to give a portion of each board sold to ocean and sea life charities.

Source: gilisports.com

What’s great about this brand’s approach is that it doesn’t allow its brand values to become empty promises. Instead, the founder gives regular updates about how the company works to fulfill its commitments. You can see one of these updates in the video posted to GILI’s Facebook page at the beginning of 2021.

Source: facebook.com

Transparency is another way to humanize your brand voice and improve the effectiveness of your top-of-funnel marketing. Show potential customers that your organization is a relatable entity working hard to become its best self.

The Body Shop provides buyers with information about its packaging and future plans on its website. It doesn’t sugarcoat facts. For example, it states that 68% of its packaging is only technically recyclable and that the organization is working towards developing products that will be fully recyclable. The brand is also open about its current refill scheme only working for eight products.

Source: thebodyshop.com

This approach to transparency is great for awareness stage marketing as it allows the brand to connect with eco-conscious consumers without making promises that it’s unable to fulfill.

And the end result is not just a branding win for The Body Shop. By taking this transparent route to top-of-funnel marketing, the company also attracts consumers thinking about long-term investments, ensuring that each new customer acquired has the highest possible chance of becoming a loyal buyer and vocal brand advocate.

6. Promote your blog posts across multiple channels

One of the main objectives of awareness stage marketing is to reach as many potential customers as possible. So, your sales funnel needs to employ strategies that help you get your content to these audiences as effectively as possible.

One way to do so is to widen your reach by investing in promotion on multiple channels. Publishing content on your blog is a great way to attract consumers. However, it’s not necessarily the fastest way to secure conversion.

Instead, try cross-posting on social media networks populated by your target audience (PEW Research is an excellent resource for finding social media usage statistics based on demographics data). Then, to maximize the chances of your content being seen by your target audience, you can invest in paid promotion, like Hubspot did for its latest content marketing templates.

Source: facebook.com

7. Highlight your USP and company values with sales copy

As you invest in and optimize your brand’s inbound marketing, remember that getting people to your website or social media pages isn’t enough. You also have to ensure that they’re blown away when they reach their destination.

To do this, work hard to guarantee that your unique selling proposition and company values are represented by well-written sales copy, like the one used by Cocoon Tea Artisans.

Source: cocoonteaartisans.com

The following are some copywriting best practices you should stick to when building landing pages for the top of your sales funnel:

• Keep your value propositions clear and simple.
• Highlight the benefits you offer to consumers.
• Encourage web visitors to act with conversion-optimized CTAs.
• Explore multiple formats. For example, survey data shows that 73% of consumers prefer to learn about products through explainer videos than text.
• Find opportunities to express your brand’s values and mission with website copy.

8. Build a community that focuses on problem-solving rather than sales

Nowadays, people have to sift through a lot of options before they find the perfect solutions for their needs. And more often than not, the process is time and energy-consuming. So, many buyers choose to listen to peers, influencers, and industry experts when making purchasing decisions.

Now, there are multiple ways you can use this knowledge to improve the effectiveness of your awareness stage marketing. But one tactic that marketers usually overlook is the creation of communities that utilize your brand’s expertise to solve consumer problems without creating pressure for members to invest in your products.

For example, Aura does this with a Facebook group where it teaches Amazon sellers how to boost conversion on the sales platform, completely free of charge.

Source: goaura.com

What’s great about the approach is that the tips and advice shared in this group hugely benefit Aura’s target audience. But, they also prove that Aura is a trustworthy brand that is capable of solving several consumer pain points (even some that the Facebook group members might not even be aware of yet).

Top-of-funnel marketing that works

Even though consumers are spending an increasing amount of time online, reaching audiences in the top segment of your sales funnel can prove to be difficult (or expensive). Especially if your awareness stage marketing tactics aren’t optimized to deliver results while minimizing costs.

Fortunately, the top-of-funnel marketing tactics described in this guide make for an excellent start when building brand awareness.

Take the time to choose the tips that will work best for you (or even better, combine as many of these strategies as you can), and you’re guaranteed to see excellent results.

Of course, these results won’t happen overnight. But that’s all right. If you’re after quick gains, your best bet is to follow these steps and invest in paid promotion.

Sure, it may not be the cheapest way to get the word out about your company. But it will ensure that the impression you leave con your audience guarantees a bright future for your business.

In an ongoing attempt to serve their users with increasingly useful search results, Google has started to categorize searches based on what the searcher intends to do with the results.

Understanding search intent helps digital marketers populate their websites with content that can be useful for searchers. This content acts as a signal of quality for Google. It signals that users are likely to find what they’re looking for on the page.

In this article, we’ll take a look at the four main search intents as identified by SEO experts. We’ll also discuss the signals that Google looks for when trying to identify this intent. And we’ll talk about how sites can create these content signals.

The four search intents

It may seem like a bit of an oversimplification, but SEO experts tend to agree that Google differentiates between these four search intents:

• Navigational: We want Google to take us to a specific website.
• Informational: We have a question that we need answered.
• Commercial: We want to learn more about various products that can solve specific problems in our lives.
• Transactional: We want to find the best place to buy something that we’ve got our eyes on.

It’s no coincidence that there’s such an obvious overlap between search intent and the stages of the customer journey. Google understands the role their search engine plays in helping people find what they need. So, it continues to tweak its indexing and ranking logic accordingly.

Why optimizing for search intent is important

We already touched on one of the reasons earlier. Google likes knowing that their users are going to get value from the high-ranking search results they return. When web pages contain certain content signals aligned with the searcher’s likely intent, the search engine ranks that page higher.

The second reason optimizing for search intent is important involves the user’s behavior once they arrive at the web page. When you’ve created content that matches what the user wants to do, they’re far more likely to stay engaged and far less likely to bounce back to the search results in an effort to find a page that matches their needs.

A user’s behavior on a particular web page is a strong signal to Google that the page is suitable for the search term they entered. By taking search intent into consideration, you’re maximizing the chances of keeping your site visitors engaged and saying to Google: “Yes, this page is exactly what the person was looking for. Please go ahead and boost its placement in the search results.”

Now, let’s take a look at each of the four intents and discuss how marketers can create content optimized for them.

Navigational search intent

How often do people remember the exact URL of a SaaS application’s login page? And what are the chances that they’ve got it bookmarked?

What’s the fastest way of finding a company’s contact details? Does it involve entering their homepage URL and then navigating to the Contact Us page?

Let’s say a prospective customer remembers that a company sells a particular line of products and wants to check their prices. What’s the most likely way they’ll try to find this information?

In all three of these cases, doing a Google search for the page they’re looking for is the easiest way to get where they want to be. This is navigational search intent. A person wants to use Google to take them to a specific page for which they don’t know the URL.

Optimizing for navigational intent

Provided you own the domain that the user is searching for, creating content that matches navigational intent is relatively straightforward.

Think about the user-facing purpose that each of the pages on your site serves. Ask yourself what a person is likely to do once they arrive there. For example, is it to:

• find a list of locations in their city?
• find your contact details?
• get a quote on a particular product?

Once you understand why someone would want to navigate to this page, think about the search terms that users may enter when looking for it. You want to ensure the page contains these words.

In each of the three examples we’ve mentioned above, you’ll notice content that’s obviously aligned with what Google will interpret as intent signals. Words, maps, email addresses, telephone numbers, and field labels all combine to show the search engine that this page is going to allow the user to do what they need to do.

In addition to populating the content of each of these pages appropriately, there are two other areas where Google looks for signals of navigational intent:

• the page’s title tags
• the meta descriptions

Google uses these HTML elements to describe their search results adequately (see screenshot below) but this info can also be used to infer search intent.

Image source: Google.com

Ensure that both of these HTML tags describe exactly what users do on the page. Terms that describe intent will give Google sufficient insight into the page’s purpose. They’ll help Google map it to the appropriate search terms.

Informational search intent

People have informational intent when they’re looking for knowledge. They have a question or a pain point and they need expert guidance to help them understand it.

These searchers aren’t looking for information on specific solutions yet. They’re at the very start of their journey towards a product or service that will meet their needs. At this point, they’re often not even sure what their needs are yet or that there are, in fact, solutions that will help them.

Informational search queries can be extremely broad in scope and cover a broad range of topics. Here are some examples:

• “Why am I sad during winter”
• “How to improve newsletter open rate”
• “Help with cat destroying furniture”
• “Best way to stop running out of inventory”

Google identifies informational searches by looking for specific words in the search term. This isn’t an exact science, as search terms can be short, ambiguous, and unclear. But in cases where users actually use words like “why,” “how to,” “best way,” “can I,” or “help with,” it’s relatively easy for the search engine to understand that the user wants to be informed.

The searcher doesn’t have a solution in mind in any of the above examples. All they have is a good sense of their problem and a desire to learn more. They’re not interested in a solution yet. Their main priority at this point is to gain knowledge about what they’re facing.

Optimizing for informational intent

A blog post that serves informational intent needs to do two things:

• Firstly, it has to let Google know that its content is appropriate for users with informational intent. Doing this successfully will boost its ranking above posts that fail to take intent into consideration.
• Secondly, it needs to respect the fact that many searchers aren’t in the market for a product or service yet. These searchers simply want to understand their issue better and explore solutions. If the content they’re reading prioritizes selling over guiding, the article runs the risk of losing credibility. Naturally, it will easily alienate a potential lead.

1. Use “informational” search terms in the article’s title, sub-headings, and body

Certain words show Google that a searcher is looking for informational content. In the same way, content marketers can use words to indicate that their post addresses that same intent.

For example, this post on inventory forecasting is titled: “How to Do Smarter Inventory Forecasting: A Guide for Small Businesses.” It could have been, for example, “The Many Ways Your Business Can Benefit from Smart Inventory Forecasting.”

This post title contains two terms that show Google the article is about providing information: “how to” and “guide.” Other terms that serve this purpose include:

• help
• why does
• best way to
• when
• anatomy of
• what is

Also remember to use these terms in the page’s HTML title and meta description tags.

2. Use a post format that’s typically associated with informational content

“Post format” refers to how the information in the article is presented to the user. In their research into search intent, Ahrefs found a correlation between the top informational articles and the way content is structured in the post.

Post titles containing terms like “Best way to” or “How to” often present their information in list format. Their subheadings often communicate a step-by-step process (see the example below), and they might include a table of contents.

Image source: Canva.com

3. Answer the question

Content relevance is incredibly important to avoid users bouncing back to Google and damaging your post’s SEO credibility.

If you’re attempting to rank your article “When Is the Best Time to Visit Cancun” and your purpose is to pitch a hard sell for your travel agency rather than giving as thorough and helpful an answer as possible, your visitors will try to find a better article elsewhere.

In this case, you know that your visitors’ intent is to gain information. You know they’re not ready for a sales pitch yet. Understand their intent, give them the knowledge they’re after, and your page’s usage metrics will send a great signal back to Google.

4. Get to the point quickly

People who want to know how to get a red wine stain out of their $8,000 sofa aren’t interested in a lengthy story about the time your niece spilled grape juice on a Persian rug you inherited from your eccentric uncle.

Lengthy, redundant intros have become a much-mocked staple in informational articles. Sure, they were once necessary to meet your keyword targets, but user satisfaction is now a crucial factor when Google ranks search results. People don’t read websites for the sake of reading. They’ve got Margaret Atwood novels for this purpose. People want answers, or they’re going somewhere else.

So, don’t bore your readers. Give them what they want instantly or run the risk of sending very troubling signals to Google about serving your visitors’ intent.

5. Don’t overplay the sales angle

People who visit your website with informational needs don’t want to be sold to. If your content aims to position a product rather than offer useful knowledge, you run two risks: compromising the quality of your information and damaging your objectivity.

Both of these scenarios could result in the same outcome—visitors bouncing from your site in search of more meaningful, credible information.

Commercial search intent

Google users have commercial intent once they realize that their problem can be solved by some kind of product or service. They’re intrigued by the prospect of solving it with something they can buy or sign up for, but they’re not sure which option would be right for them. They’re in no rush. They need to do some research before pulling the trigger.

This mindset is understandable. When it comes to online shopping, be it for digital solutions, services, or physical products, people are used to having a host of options. And that’s regardless of how niche their problem or how specific their constraints are.

Content that addresses commercial intent exists further down the sales funnel but still doesn’t serve the singular purpose of pitching a specific product. These articles allow readers to weigh up their options, consider their needs, and make an informed decision.

Here are some examples of posts that address commercial intent:

• a curated list of products in a specific category
• a review roundup of alternatives to an industry leader
• a list of services or stores in a geographic location
• a side-by-side comparison of two similar products
• a review of tools that enhance the usefulness of another tool
• a detailed, objective review of a specific product

Optimizing for Commercial Intent

1. Don’t hold back on detail

As you can see from the content and format of the above examples, posts addressing commercial intent don’t hold back on detail. Readers who are doing research are comfortable enough to dive into the deep end.

For instance, Soundguys.com performs deep-dive assessments of audio equipment, rating products like headphones on no fewer than 11 different metrics (see screenshot below).

Image source: Soundguys.com

Don’t be afraid to look at articles competing for the same keywords. Take a look at what the top-ranking posts are covering. Your aim is to go into at least as much detail as they went.

2. Be (and look) trustworthy

A site that overwhelms readers with offers and calls to action isn’t going to have much credibility when it comes to serving commercial intent. Sure, readers are closer to a purchasing decision than when they’re simply looking for information. But that doesn’t mean they’ll be comfortable with a BUY NOW button every 300 words.

Commercial content that wins readers’ trust also tends not to hide a product’s shortcomings. Ad fatigue is real, and if your in-depth review reads like a lengthy sales pitch, readers are likely to bounce. Remember, Google doesn’t like this signal at all.

3. Use the right keywords

Typically, commercial intent searches involve the following terms: “best,” “top,” “vs,” “comparison,” “alternatives to,” “review,” and “is X worth it.” Basic research using a tool like Ahrefs should allow you to find the correct keywords to target for your industry and the type of commercial post you’re creating.

Transactional search intent

Users who search with transactional intent are close to the bottom end of the sales funnel. These searchers are aware of their problems, and they’ve made a decision on a product (or type of product) that’s going to solve them. They’re willing to enter their credit card details somewhere.

It’s important to distinguish between two different kinds of transactional intent.

1. The first is when a searcher is simply looking for a page where they can buy the item or service they have in mind. They’ve been sold on it, and all they’re looking for is a reputable, secure online vendor to buy it from.
2. The second kind of searcher is one that’s prepared to go through with a purchase, but they’re looking for the best price or the opportunity to save.

Bear in mind that your approach to optimizing for transactional intent should be determined by the kind of shopper you’re hoping to attract and your unique selling points.

If you’re not clear on who you’re trying to bring to your transactional page, ask yourself:

• Are you the only vendor selling a particular product?
• Are you the cheapest?
• Will your customers save on shipping?

Whatever USP sets you apart from your competitors, there will be shoppers looking for it. The key is to ensure that you determine what drives that particular shopper’s transactional intent and to optimize for it.

Optimizing for transactional intent

1. Describe your product properly

This goes without saying, but it’s worth mentioning upfront. If you’re selling a niche product, don’t hide its most important descriptors somewhere in the body text. Lead with what makes it unique. People searching for fully organic, vanilla flavored, vegan protein powder usually won’t accept anything less than this exact product.

Image source: Futurekind.com

If you’ve niched down this hard with your inventory, make sure that your page’s HTML title, H1 heading, and body content are adequately littered with these words and their synonyms. Find space wherever you can to reference the product’s description: gallery captions, user reviews and testimonials, subheadings.

Your goal with this description is to signal intent to Google and communicate to prospective customers that they’re on the right page.

2. Optimize for the right keywords

In addition to the keywords that describe your product, people with transactional intent typically use the following words in their search terms:

• budget
• affordable
• shipping
• discount
• buy
• coupon
• near me
• best price
• order
• buy online
• purchase
• cheapest
• where to buy

For some expert help in finding the ideal transactional keywords you can target, use SEO Review Tools’ handy transactional keyword generator.

3. Give shoppers what they came for

If you’ve targeted keywords like “cheapest,” “sale,” “coupons,” “lowest price,” or “discount,” you better follow through. Make it obvious to your page visitors that the reason they clicked on your search result is valid.

If you’ve optimized for the keyword “cheapest,” provide proof that your prices can’t be beaten. The same goes for “winter sale.” Splash graphics or text all over your product page to reinforce this message.

Remember that transactional intent isn’t just about finding the first available vendor that stocks a particular product. It’s also about finding the vendor that matches their supplemental needs, like budget and location.

Doing your own research

There’s a lot to search intent, and like most things SEO-related, it’s not an exact science. Most of what’s been written on this topic has come from reverse engineering, research, and the odd official document published by Google itself.

That’s why it’s important that any content marketer who wants to stay ahead of the curve commits their time to doing their own research. In this case, the best way to find out more about how Google rewards pages that have been optimized for search intent is to simply look at what top-ranking pages have in common.

Taking ownership of this process represents a massive leap towards SEO success. While articles on this topic are incredibly useful in building a foundation of knowledge, staying abreast of the most recent SEO developments often comes down to simply seeing what SERP winners are doing.

But running a company is hard work, and it’s easy to get distracted by other, equally important, tasks and strategies.

This article is for those business owners who want to get back to the basics—business owners who are ready to throw some money and effort at the top end of their marketing funnels.

Let’s look at eight ways you can drive more quality traffic to your site.

1. Create evergreen content

Forget, just for a minute, the marketing industry’s understandable preoccupation with creating content that ranks on Google.

Sure, it’s madness to completely overlook this aspect of SEO-focused content marketing. Your blog post means very little if it’s never going to be found using a search engine. Having said that, Google rankings shouldn’t be your only concern. When you publish a post that offers exceptional, evergreen value, you’re creating a marketing asset that will attract visitors for as long as it’s on your blog.

SEO concepts like keyword density and search volume should heavily influence your marketing strategy. However, it’s fine to occasionally put these aside in favor of creating content that delivers extremely helpful, evergreen information.

Certain subjects are just always popular amongst the citizens of the web. People always want to get healthier. They always want to find interesting things to entertain themselves with. Business people always want to find strategies to become more successful.

EachNight’s detailed blog post titled “Sleep Calculator: What’s the Best Time to Go to Sleep” is an excellent example of evergreen content.

Everyone wants a better night’s rest. It’s a matter of mental and physical health that affects literally everyone on the planet. Sleep isn’t a “seasonal” activity either. It’s an unavoidable part of the human experience. Until people evolve out of their need to sleep, this is as evergreen as content gets.

2. Get your site optimized for mobile devices

Google has officially come right out and said that responsive websites get better ranking positions in their search results. In fact, the search algorithm is now using “mobile first” indexing, meaning that the mobile version of a website is used as the core page for determining a site’s ranking eligibility.

Why is this so important to Google? It all comes down to user experience. Remember that modern-day consumers are far more likely to browse your website on a smartphone or tablet than a desktop computer. Mobile searches now make up the majority of Google’s traffic, so it makes sense to prioritize that.

Now bear in mind that mobile users are more prone to usability issues than desktop users. A mobile screen is much smaller than a laptop’s, and interacting with a complex UI can be frustrating without a mouse/keyboard combo.

At the same time, data also suggests that mobile users are extremely sensitive to long load times (thanks TikTok for burning out my dopamine receptors). Every second you can shave off the time a user has to wait for a page to load, you’re decreasing the chances of them abandoning your site altogether.

For an example of a site that’s done a great job of offering a mobile-optimized experience, take a look at the difference between the Real Thread desktop and mobile sites.

By tweaking the layout, scaling down image size, and doing away with all animated elements, the company was able to offer users a fast-loading mobile experience that’s incredibly easy to browse. And all of this without losing any of the desktop site’s core aesthetic.

3. Get super niche

The internet is a big place. It’s everything—all the information.

When fishing for traffic with content, casting your net wide means you’re trying to attract hundreds of millions of people. If you succeed… fantastic. You’re going to see an overwhelming influx of traffic.

But success here means you need to beat some pretty stiff competition for Google’s ranking. And the average small business website has virtually no hope of doing something like that.

A feasible alternative is to throw several smaller nets into very specific areas of the digital ocean. In practice, this means aiming for smaller niche audiences with your content’s topics and keywords.

Finli demonstrates a great example of this approach with their blog post “How to Grow Your Martial Arts Business | Ultimate Guide.”

Rather than aiming for the biggest possible audience pool with a topic like “How to Grow Your Small Business” or even something slightly less ambitious like “The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your E-Commerce Business,” the blog post aims for a very specific audience.

By creating information in this specific niche, Finli is making two outcomes very likely.

Firstly, their chances of ranking on Google are much better than if they’d aimed for a more saturated topic.

Secondly, the chances of their content being shared on social media are higher. That’s because online communities typically form around very specific topics, like the business of martial arts.

Worth noting is that you won’t achieve these two goals simply because you choose a niche topic. Even a very specific subject is still going to have a ton of competition. You’ll still have to apply the fundamentals of SEO to ensure your content ranks. And to increase the chances of your content going viral, focus on delivering genuinely exceptional information.

4. Launch a podcast

Setting yourself up to do a podcast may not be the simplest strategy on this list. Nonetheless, the rewards can be remarkable.

Think of a great podcast episode in the same way you would think of a kickass evergreen blog post. It’s going to live on your site forever.

Every time someone listens to your podcast, there’s a chance they might share it on social media or tell their friends about it. If your content is good enough, it’s also possible to have your podcast published on a bunch of well-established platforms—each motivated to drive their audience towards great content like yours.

Investing.io has their podcast hosted on fourteen different platforms, including industry giants like Spotify, Apple, and Google. That’s a vast number of people that you’re exposing your brand to every time you publish a new episode.

Without a doubt, the most important thing to concern yourself with when launching a podcast is content quality. Sure, there’s a lot you can do to promote each episode. But none of this matters if you’re not creating content that people look forward to hearing.

So, be provocative. Be insightful. Tackle a niche that you’re an expert in. Take an online course in public speaking. Invite exciting, interesting guests who have exciting, interesting ideas.

Obviously, you can’t ignore the technical side of things, but there are more than enough online resources to help you in this area. Making your podcast sound credible is vital, but don’t get preoccupied with this aspect.

Consistently publish amazing content, and your podcast will generate high-quality traffic for your website.

5. Promote your website smartly on your social media profile

Some brands have done an excellent job at building an audience on social media. This isn’t an easy thing to do. Like generating traffic for your website, you face tons of challenges when growing a following on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

But persistence and following proven strategies will pay off in the long run. People are hungry for excellent content on social media, and if you deliver, they will come.

But that’s not what this section of our piece is about. We’re here to talk about how your social media presence can be used to channel traffic to your website.

Skillcrush usesits Instagram account brilliantly to direct traffic to its website. The brand uses a super simple, highly effective tactic. Directly above the website link on their Instagram bio, the folks from Skillcrush were smart to tell users about the benefit of visiting their home page: “Take our free 3-minute quiz to find out if tech is right for you!”

They’ve attached a compelling hook to their website link.

Sure, some Instagram users may click on your website link purely out of curiosity or because they want to find out more about your company. But if you give them a solid reason to go down the rabbit hole, you’re getting the most out of this element.

On Facebook and Twitter, Skillcrush chooses to adopt a slightly different approach. Instead of using a functional CTA (the quiz), the brand opts to appeal to users’ emotions.

“Digital skills are job skills. Learn the web development & design skills you need to get the money and freedom you deserve.”

“Skillcrush is an online platform and community for learning coding and design skills to change your career.”

Both of these passages aim for the visitor’s heart by using emotive language. More than half of workers in the United States are unsatisfied with their jobs. Skillcrush leverages this fact to channel traffic to their product—a product capable of changing lives.

When creating your company’s social media profiles, make sure to give compelling reasons why followers should click through to your site.

6. Build backlinks through outreach

Backlinks are still important.

Sure, SEO tactics like “topical authority” (we’ll get to this later) may have started to hog the spotlight over the past 18 months. But, that doesn’t mean Google has completely forgotten how big a signal of quality it is when external sites link to one of your blog posts.

But how can you increase the chances of your content being referenced by a reputable third party? I’ll share two crucial tips.

It’s worth noting, though, that all of these tactics will have benefits outside of increasing the chances of landing a backlink. So try not to think about them purely from this perspective.

Create new knowledge

Websites aren’t going to link to your content if you don’t give them a reason to do so. And the best reason of all is if you’re the only site that offers information they can’t find anywhere else.

If you’re sitting on an email subscriber list or social media following that’s big enough to mine for new knowledge, consider conducting surveys and building data from responses.

Reach out and ask your followers questions about your industry. Convert their feedback into blog posts or infographics that shine a new light on an existing topic. This information could be extremely valuable for one of your peers looking to make a specific point in one of their own blog posts or marketing material.

Every year, explainer video producers, WyzOwl, publish a thorough report on the current state of the video marketing industry. This data is immensely referenceable – a fact evidenced by the WyzOwl domain having close to 20,000 backlinks, according to Uber Suggest.

Another way to create “new” knowledge is to interview reputable industry experts and thought leaders. Get them to weigh in on an issue closely related to your industry.

These articles, often called “expert roundups,” take a lot of time to complete and require a ton of legwork, but the payoff can be immense. A well-populated roundup post is packed with highly referenceable quotes that support claims made by your peers.

In most cases, you’ll also score backlinks for roundup posts because the person being quoted wants to show their contribution.

Make the right people aware of your amazing new knowledge

If you’ve spent weeks creating a 4,000-word blog post packed full of awesome referenceable material, you’d be crazy to just sit and wait for people to find it organically.

This is where “outreach” comes into play—the assertive, diplomatic act of suggesting to someone that a link to your data would benefit them.

A word of warning: this is not a simple undertaking. It’s not rocket science, but it’s also not something you’re going to implement over a long weekend.

There’s a ton of great content online about the finer points of outreach, but a quick summary of the process won’t go amiss:

1. Use Google to find blog posts that cover the same keywords as your blog post. These are your competitors’ posts.
2. Using a tool like Moz Link Explorer, find the sites that have backlinks to your competitors’ posts. These are your prospects.
3. Prepare and make email contact with your prospect. Your job here is to make a solid case for them to link to your content. This article by Backlinko is essential reading for the novice link builder. This is a delicate process that needs a lot of preparation and communication. Do your homework before taking this step.

7. Illustrate topical authority

Google loves serving pages that are likely to satisfy its users’ needs. The search engine is on a neverending mission to find ways to separate good content from bad.

Over the years, Google has used many techniques to do this. Keyword density and quality backlinks have traditionally been two of the biggest drivers here. But now, a new metric is starting to become increasingly influential in SEO: topical authority.

Topical authority is the ability to show expertise on a specific subject. Google is increasingly favoring sites that cover a specific topic in great depth over a series of posts rather than a single article.

More and more SEO experts are encouraging site owners to show Google that their site is an authority on a specific topic by publishing several posts on it.

In practice, Google likes seeing “depth” of coverage. For example, a single post on “The Benefits of the Keto Diet” may use keywords brilliantly and also have tons of backlinks. But if this topic isn’t covered elsewhere on the domain, Google is likely to penalize it in the rankings.

To prevent this and also see your articles get a ranking boost, write as many other meaningful articles on this topic as possible. Think about what other information readers may want about the keto diet and publish as many posts on it as you can.

The key here is not to replicate content or to create “fluff.” Use Google to see what questions people are asking about the keto diet, and answer the top five in a highly detailed article.

When displaying search results for the term “keto diet,” Google also shows some very handy content under the heading “People also ask.” For instance, “What can I eat on the keto diet?” and “Is the keto diet bad for me?”

Don’t answer this question inside your main article. This is an amazing opportunity to show topical authority by publishing a dedicated article for every single one of these questions.

8. Go the paid advertising route

As much stock as content marketers put into their chosen channel, driving organic traffic to your site with great content is always going to be a long game.

Creating a successful blog with a steady stream of traffic never happens overnight. On average, it takes six to nine months, according to the Content Marketing Institute.

If you need to see results quickly and you have the budget for it, don’t forget about paid ads on platforms like Google, Facebook, and Instagram.

Don’t let the “quick results” angle fool you into thinking that this is an easy channel to generate traffic with. There are tons of complex factors that influence a paid campaign’s success.

Here’s a quick summary (along with some helpful resources) of paid advertising’s best practices.

• Plan and strategize properly. Don’t launch an ad campaign without having a roadmap that details exactly what you want to achieve and how you’re planning to do it.
• Work to a budget. Paid advertising is a numbers game. You do not want to spend more on a conversion than the conversion is worth.
• Pay attention to your ad copy. The text that entices people to click on your ad is no small matter. Don’t underestimate the importance of research and A/B testing here.
• Make sure your landing page delivers on the ad’s promise. Your potential customers want to see consistency between your ad and the page it takes them to. If a specific claim or promise got them to click on the advert, your landing page needs to continue with that message.

Another piece of advice I can offer here is to involve a professional, especially if you’re new to paid advertising. Even though all the various platforms make it relatively simple to get started, there’s a level of nuance to running a successful campaign that could take years to master.

Some Final Words

It’s fair to say that generating traffic for your website isn’t rocket science. None of the strategies we’ve discussed in this article need an advanced degree to grasp or implement.

But that’s not to say that they’re easy or absolutely guaranteed to work immediately. Success in this area of digital marketing requires tenacity, diligence, and attention to detail.

Most importantly, you have to get comfortable with research.

Reading articles like this one is a great first step. But, they’re the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the amount of useful knowledge you can consume on this complex topic. Get comfortable with this learning journey, and you will reap the rewards.